


Nothing

by emjam



Series: lgbtq+ gravity falls [3]
Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Aromantic Grunkle Ford, Bisexual Grunkle Stan, Demiromantic Grunkle Stan, Gen, Gender-Neutral Pronouns, Genderqueer Mabel, I'll make that a tag yet, Nonbinary Character, old grunkles know more recent terms thanks to their cool up-to-date nibling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-16
Updated: 2016-11-16
Packaged: 2018-08-31 07:16:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8569285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emjam/pseuds/emjam
Summary: Thanks to Mabel, Ford finds a word for his feelings about romance, or rather, his lack of.
He talks about it with Stan.





	

“A-rom-an-tic?” The word clunked off of Ford’s tongue awkwardly; he had never heard it before, though it felt like he should have known it much sooner.

Mabel responded with a shining smile, leaning on the table. “Yeah, it’s when you don’t feel anything romantic for anybody, ever!” Suddenly, Dipper’s voice could be heard through the shack, calling aer. “Oops, gotta go! Ducktective is getting really complicated and I can't miss this ep!" Ae jumped down from aer chair and ran off.

Ford watched aer hair bounce as ae left. His nibling's gender hadn't been a complicated subject to grasp; he'd been in many dimensions, some containing humans and some not, and he had come across a vast diversity of genders (and sexes). Some were self-identified and some sex-based, but these encounters made clear that gender did not just consist of the two he had been taught to know. Not surprising, really, considering human levels of intelligence, humans' biodiversity, and the fact that aliens obviously varied biologically and socially from humans in most cases as well. However, the idea that love wasn't for everyone, that someone did not have to date and fall in love, had somehow never made its way to him. He mulled over the word.

Aromantic.

* * *

Ford stared blankly at the mold on the gift shop ceiling that was gaining sentience. His original intent was to scrape some off for study, but he had gotten lost in thought in the process.

Stan walked up behind him with merchandise boxes in arm and looked at his statue of a brother for a moment. “What’s eating you, sixer?”

“Stanley…” His voice held a strange tone. It itched to talk about this, but Mabel had just run off, and he felt like he needed to talk to _someone_ about it. And he could trust Stanley, right? “Do you know about what Mabel was talking to me about earlier in the kitchen? A-Aromanticism?”

His brother dropped the stack onto the counter and started to open a box. “Sure, apparently there’s a lot of those from what I could make of what ae told me.”

“A lot of what?”

“Romantic orientations, like biromantic, heteromantic, uh… I dunno, lots. I don’t know much about it.” The sound of shifting boxes accompanied his words.

“Well, based on what ae has been telling me, I have every reason to believe I'm aromantic.” Ford was still looking intently at the spot of mold that sat immobile in the corner of the gift shop. It shivered slightly and Ford responded with an interested “Hmm," journal and pen poised to write something down, discarding the equipment he bought up for the creature's (?) capture.

“Y’know, things have really changed since you’ve been gone, Ford. There’s so many names for things now, I just figured out where I fit in everything and left it at that. Aromantic means that you're not attracted to anyone at all, right? Romantically, I mean.” He glanced behind him, and Ford nodded. "You never were much for romance anyway, huh? Always studying instead of going out. I remember that one time Jenny from our 9th grade math class asked you out and you got so flustered that you almost tripped over yourself trying to explain that you didn't want to date her." They both chuckled at the memory.

"Heh, yeah, I suppose so. It's just a bit embarrassing when people assume that you would want to date someone in the first place. A lot of people talked about getting crushes and wanting to date them, but I just felt... nothing." He supposed it was pretty clear if he thought about his attitude towards romance in the past. Maybe that's why Stanley wasn't too surprised. It's a relief either way, that he could talk about this with him. Ford was silent, and then turned his gaze to his brother. “Where _do_ you fit, Stanley?”

Stan stopped his motions. “Oh, uh, demiromantic. I don’t feel that for someone unless we’re really close friends, ya know? Like ‘if you killed someone I’d help hide the body’ close. And...” He paused for a moment, stuck. He knew Ford wouldn't care, but it still felt like he was halfway to being strangled while trying to say the words. "I'm bi." He resumed displaying bobble heads, a bit hastily, clunking them onto the shelf.

"You... you know it's okay, right? Who you love doesn't change anything."

"Yeah, yeah," Stan muttered, flustered, but secretly relieved, even though the chance that Ford would be a dick about it was pretty low to begin with. 

He returned to sifting through boxes, and Ford returned to examining the mold.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm totally uploading these backwards, this must have been written for months before I wrote the last installment ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> I wasn't sure whether or not Mabel should be gq in this since I wrote it before the other 2, but I supposed this was a series now, so I changed Mabel's pronouns to keep it in the same universe.


End file.
